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The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has abandoned an effort to reconstruct a detailed picture of hour-by-hour changes in the atmosphere stretching back to the 19th century. Scientists call the move shore-sighted. Lamont-Doherty scientist Richard Seager was part of the team that used 20th Century Reanalysis data to tease apart the drivers of the Dust Bowl. Now he's using the information to analyze the factors that produced historic flooding last year along the Ohio and Missouri rivers. "[NOAA] defunded this at a time when everyone is using this dataset to look at long-term changes," Seager said. "To defund it now is a very strange decision."

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has abandoned an effort to reconstruct a detailed picture of hour-by-hour changes in the atmosphere stretching back to the 19th century. Scientists call the move shore-sighted. Lamont-Doherty scientist Richard Seager was part of the team that used 20th Century Reanalysis data to tease apart the drivers of the Dust Bowl. Now he's using the information to analyze the factors that produced historic flooding last year along the Ohio and Missouri rivers. "[NOAA] defunded this at a time when everyone is using this dataset to look at long-term changes," Seager said. "To defund it now is a very strange decision."

More thorough tracking of Ohio’s seismic activity would have alerted officials that a new injection well was triggering earthquakes near Youngstown, says Lamont-Doherty seismologist John Armbruster.

Lamont-Doherty geophysicist Robin Bell discusses Antarctica's Lake Vostok, buried under two miles of ice that Russian scientists reached this week after 10 years of drilling.

Lamont-Doherty scientist Robin Bell, who studies the behavior of ice sheets, designed surveys of the lake conducted in 2000 and 2001, using radar and other techniques, which showed the shape and location of the lake. Because it is such an unusual environment, there is always the possibility that it will provide other geological insights, she said, adding, “We could learn something absolutely unique.”

As far as sea levels are concerned, changes in the Pine Island Glacier and other West Antarctic glaciers are far more important than shifts among the continent's other glaciers, says Lamont-Doherty oceanographer Doug Martinson.

The extreme drought gripping Texas and the rest of the Southwest is likely to intensify, according to a panel of Columbia climate experts who spoke on Capitol Hill on Climate Science Day. The panel consisted of Lamont-Doherty scientists Richard Seager and Mingfang Ting as well as scientist Lisa Goddard from Columbia's International Research Institute for Climate and Society.

After drilling for two decades through more than two miles of ice, Russian scientists are on the verge of entering Antarctica's huge, unexplored and pristine Lake Vostok. Lamont-Doherty scientist Robin Bell says learning more about the subglacial world in Antarctica is essential to understanding the changing climate and how it may effect Earth. Because the continent has so much of the world’s freshwater ice, significant changes there would have a major impact on sea-level rise.

Scientists have only a fledgling ability now, but a new approach to prediction could eventually allow forecasters to identify portions of states facing high risk for tornadoes in an upcoming month. A new study by IRI climate scientist Michael Tippett and Lamont-Doherty scientists Adam Sobel and Suzana Camargo is discussed.

Geologists have determined that the half-mile-wide Ubehebe Crater, formed by a prehistoric volcanic explosion, was created far more recently than previously thought—and conditions for a sequel may exist today. A team of Lamont-Doherty scientists used isotopes in rocks blown out of the crater to show that it formed just 800 years ago, around the year 1300. Their findings are published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.

Lamont-Doherty geochemist Steven Chillrud comments on an MTA study that found that dust released during blasting for the Second Avenue subway is not harming air-quality.

Water produced by desalination costs three times as much as water obtained from freshwater sources because desalination is an energy-intensive process, writes Lamont-Doherty scientist Nicholas Christie-Blick in this op-ed. The long-term costs of this project -- both financial and environmental -- must be examined, he says.

NewsHour science correspondent Miles O'Brien traveled to three continents to examine the safety and future of nuclear energy in the wake of last spring's Fukushima reactor disaster in Japan. At Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory in Palisades, NY, O'Brien stopped to speak with seismologist Lynn Sykes about the seismic risks at Indian Point power plant.

While Ohio residents are reaping the benefits of an oil well wastewater boom, they are also experiencing earthquakes that may be triggered by the injection of waste fluids underground. Lamont-Doherty seismologist John Armbruster discusses the results of an investigation near a fracking wastewater well outside Youngstown.

Much of the wastewater from natural gas exploration in Pennsylvania winds up injected into the earth in wells found in neighboring states, such as Ohio. But over the past several months, regions near one of these wells has experienced a string of small earthquakes—resulting in a moratorium of four others and a closer examination of the practice. Lamont-Doherty seismologist Won-Young Kim discusses his analysis of the site.

Lamont-Doherty climate scientist Richard Seager compares this year's mild winter to years past and discusses how this warm January weather fits into the pattern proposed by climate change.

Lamont-Doherty scientist James Gaherty explains how a recent research expedition to the Pacific Ocean will help scientists uncover basic information about the formation and evolution of earth's tectonic plates.

As the earth’s climate changes, one tool for understanding its environmental impacts is the study of past climate changes, revealed by layers of sediment taken from the sea floor. Climate scientist Maureen Raymo, who heads Lamont-Doherty's collection of deep sea sediments, explains why this extensive repository matters.

"Ice is cool because it is really hard to look under," said Lamont-Doherty geophysicist Robin Bell. "So there are all kinds of mysteries that are underneath the ice sheet that you can’t see without sending out radar energy. You get to look somewhere nobody has looked before. So you get to find things that nobody had thought about before."

Researchers across the country have been investigating potential underground formations that could store CO2 trapped at power plants and keep it out of the atmosphere. Lamont-Doherty geophysicist David Goldberg and post-doctoral student Natalia Zakharova discuss the potential for New York and New Jersey's Newark Basin to permanently store the region's carbon emissions.